


Is it Really This Cool (To Be in Your Life)?

by rockinhamburger



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 16:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21102656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockinhamburger/pseuds/rockinhamburger
Summary: The melancholy Lardo feels as the end of the year approaches is at least partly due to her fear that Shitty graduating is the beginning of the end of their incredible friendship. It’s been an important friendship for her, in which he listens and respects her space, always willing to share physically and emotionally. And she’s always tried to be equally giving, to pull him back down to even ground when he needs it.But certainly the majority of the melancholy she feels is due to her stubbourn feelings for Shitty and the frustrating voice in her head that keeps insisting that they’ve lost their opportunity in the last two years to give something more than friendship a try.





	Is it Really This Cool (To Be in Your Life)?

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what to say about this fic except that for some reason I wrote it a couple years ago, and I've just continued tweaking it every few months ever since, hoping I'll finally be happy with it. Which is a writer trap, so here it is: my attempt to write how these two went from friends to more.
> 
> Warning: there is some recreational marijuana use in this fic.

The melancholy Lardo feels as the end of the year approaches is at least partly due to her fear that Shitty graduating is the beginning of the end of their incredible friendship. It’s been an important friendship for her, in which he listens and respects her space, always willing to share physically and emotionally. And she’s always tried to be equally giving, to pull him back down to even ground when he needs it.

But certainly the majority of the melancholy she feels is due to her stubbourn feelings for Shitty and the frustrating voice in her head that keeps insisting that they’ve lost their opportunity in the last two years to give something more than friendship a try.

In moments of vulnerability, she can see a future where they’re well suited for each other. Her mind likes to supply images of what a relationship between them would look like, and it’s… admittedly nice to think about. 

But self-preservation has always kicked in, and she decides every time that it’s just not worth losing this incredible friendship over a possibility.

All the same, there’s no way she can pretend she hasn’t been wondering, as graduation comes and then goes, what their friendship will look like now. Friendships fizzle out, especially when there isn’t that physical proxmity to hold both parties to it. So, Lardo's planned to give Shitty some time to get settled in at his new place without interruption.

The problem is, he’s called her every day since the move. He had called just to tell her about the farmer’s market a short walk away from his apartment and about the hilarious Super White neighbours below that crank reggae at odd hours. He calls to say how much he misses everyone. Sometimes he calls just to listen to her art woes.

It’s a relief to know that she factors into his life, in some small way. It was one thing to talk regularly when she was in Kenya, but that was while their lives were connected by so much even at a distance.

Still, she’s not really sure how much he wants her around now that he’s left Samwell, at least until he invites her to visit in July. “You gotta bless this place with your badassery, ‘kay?” he says in a tone that brooks no room for argument.

She doesn’t argue; she makes arrangements for the trip, with no specific end date in mind.

The first indication that there's something different about this hang out sesh, besides the fact that it’s open-ended and it’s going to be just them in Shitty's new apartment, is the text he sends her a week before she's supposed to go.

_Brah, I've got a super grody pull out mattress at my place that I would never foist on another human being, so you'll have the nice new bed I got from this local mom and pop place, IKEA. Just finished building this thing like a motherfuckin' adult!_

_Nbd, dude_ she answers. _I don’t mind a grody mattress. But congrats on the successful adulting._

Lardo finds herself contemplating what he’s said. There’s an implication, if she’s reading it right, that she's not just One Of The Guys, any of which she suspects would almost certainly be given the grody pull-out bed. There’s also the fact that Lardo gives zero shits about sleeping arrangements since she can sleep on any surface from their many, many roadies over the years, and Shitty knows that.

But she brushes it off, telling herself sternly that she's overthinking it like she overthinks many things.

-

When she shows up, he's very obviously cleaned the place.

"What the hell?" she says, taking in the spotless kitchen.

"Hmm?” Shitty says, looking around wildly, then grimacing. “Ah, fuck, listen: I hate half this stuff, too. My mom wouldn't let us leave the store until I'd chosen everything on her list and it was all charged to her credit card."

"Dude, not that," she says, raising her eyebrows at him. "This place was a disaster last week, based on the pics you sent. Did some cleaning sprites wander in here?"

He blushes. "Well, you know. Gotta clean up for company, right?"

“I practically lived in the Haus, bro. I actually do live there now," she points out. It feels like there’s something unsaid here, and she can’t put her finger on it.

Shitty shrugs and heads over to get them each a beer from the mini fridge next to the couch along the wall of the open living area. The not-remotely-grody fold-out couch. Shitty pops the lids on the bottles and brings them over, handing one to her.

He looks different. He looks nervous.

"Hey. You think I'm some kinda royalty, bud?" she teases.

"Hmm?"

"The couch." She nods to it. "Is that what the kids are calling grody these days?"

He takes a sip of his beer and plays with the label. "I just want you to be comfortable," he says, so sincerely she can’t help but blink confusedly at him. 

She checks him in the shoulder. "You're being weird. It's just me, Shits."

Shitty laughs but it's with that nervousness he gets before a game.

He grins suddenly. "So, d’you want a tour of this fuckin' hipster place?"

Changing the subject.

She decides to let him and follows him to the kitchen, then the bathroom, back to the open area, and finally to the space at the back of the loft where his bedroom is. 

She scans his posters, the dresser and side table, and the giant fucking bed that could fit Jack, Holster, and Ransom if they squished in real tight. 

"We're both sleeping here," she says decisively. "Don't even, look at this thing. It'd fit half the team; we can manage just fine."

He blushes again, and she fights one of her own. Now it’s her turn to change the subject. "You got the new NHL game or what?"

After Lardo beats him in the first game and he's close to beating her in the second, she asks about food. They order pizza and eat four slices each, switching to Netflix while they do. After dinner, they head out on to the balcony to smoke.

Shitty gets chatty when he's stoned. It's one of her favourite things about him. She can just listen to his voice and the dumb and/or weirdly brilliant shit he comes out with, can chime in occasionally but kinda float along.

On the balcony, the sun is setting in the distance. Shitty's in one of his deep moods, talking about ‘spatial practices’, something he’s been reading about this summer.

"So like, we all walk around the city space that urban planners set out for us, but we all have these spacial practices that aren’t considered in the planning. We defy those plans by inhabiting the space beyond their intended purposes. Like, a kitchen. It’s never just used for cooking and eating, which are the activities the space is usually configured for. I mean, think of Bitty. He gives that kitchen spatial practices like socializing and supporting. Think of everything that happened in that kitchen. All of that wasn't factored into the construction and design of the kitchen. We’re leaving out important experiences in society, which is ultimately a space.”

She thinks about that, takes a hit off the joint he passes her. "So, in this metaphor the urban planners are...?"

He rubs his belly; the shirt came off the second the weed came out. "Well, I guess the urban planners are the nameless, faceless forces that’ve dictated the social structure."

"Hmm. So the urban plan is the social structure and we’re the regular people navigating it and complicating it."

"Yes, exactly!" He's really getting into it now. "It's like the short path from the Haus to Faber. The urban planners didn't create it and it won't show up on a map, but we use it and make Samwell a space they never imagined when they planned it. And I’ve been thinking that we can apply this to intersectional social justice. Maybe some won't take the short path; they'll just use the intended ones and keep the status quo. But we don’t have to.”

She takes another drag off the joint, passes it back, and asks around the smoke and tightness in her lungs, "But aren't we still... complicating the intended space even if we don’t use alternative paths?" Shitty's mid-drag so he waves his hand in a keep-going gesture. She takes a sip of her water to get rid of the dry mouth, her voice raspy and low like it gets when she is especially high. "It kinda seems like we’re bound to create spatial practices just by living. Like, the map might tell me that it’s shorter to the Haus if I take Elm when I’m walking back from a late class, but I still use Bristol 'cause there's less tree cover and more lighting so it feels safer. The map doesn't say all that, so it's actually our stories on the margins of the space that make it more dimensional and representational, not the paths themselves."

Silence permeates the moment as Shitty obviously takes this in. Then, reverently, he says, "Damn.” There’s a pleasant rumble in his voice that makes her quite suddenly want to do very dirty things to him. The way he says it, too, like he’s never heard anything more fascinating in his life.

"Bro, tell me you have pie," she says to take some of the charge she feels out of the air.

He jumps out of his chair, knocking it over in his excitement. "Bitty sent four! They're in the freezer."

They move to the bed after demolishing half a raspberry rhubarb each. She lies back with her head on the pillows and Shitty joins her there, listing over onto her shoulder with a plaintive, "Lardooooo."

She scritches at his scalp and runs her hands through his hair. He sighs happily, and she attempts to control the warmth building in her chest as she imagines a future stretched out ahead of them, a distant future where their days are like this, where this level of chill is just a regular part of their life together. This has happened to her before, like when Shitty made her a bomb-ass chicken burger in the Haus kitchen her freshman year and gave her a foot rub at the table while she ate it, humming as he flipped through his civil code textbook. That’s when she’d first seen a future exactly like it ahead of them, and she'd liked it so much it kind of make her realize how she felt about Shitty.

They fall asleep like that, Lardo thinking about a possible lifetime of chicken burgers, absurd, baked metaphors, and his rumbling, awe-struck voice.

-

Shitty wakes her up with a whispered, "coffee on your left," and it's too early for her to be feeling so sappy. Why's he gotta be so goddamn perfect? He leaves her alone until she's awake, and he really knows her better than anyone in her life.

She gets clean in his new shower, makes note of the removable shower head. It turns her on to imagine him buying it with her in mind, even more so as she imagines _him using it on her, not letting up on the near-painful pressure between her legs until she begs for him to stop._

She changes into her clothes, listening for him in the apartment. He's got the television on, turned to MSNBC, and he's yelling at whatever the day's events are.

"Can you believe this fuckin' shit?" he grouses. She doesn't say anything, still a little early for a rant, and grabs up her cheese toast to scarf it down with a grunt of thanks. He chuckles and tugs her in for a hug. She tells herself it's just friendly and shoves him playfully away, flicking him in the ear.

He goes for his own shower, and she listens to the water running, absently watching the leaves blowing back and forth in the wind through the balcony door. She wonders if he's jerking off in there, if _he’s_ imagining using the shower head and water pressure to get her off. She switches the channel to something else to rein in her arousal. And she keeps her eyes on the television when he comes out, towel around his waist. She's seen him naked before; this isn't shocking, and yet...

Once he’s dressed, he gives her a tour of the neighbourhood, walking close enough that their hands and arms keep brushing. She feels a spark of warmth and tension at every instance of skin contact. At the grocery store, he makes her laugh with impressions of Hipster Boyfriend and Yuppy Husband. He gets her favourite snacks.

It's all a bit too much for her, too domestic and kind of painful for that reason. There are equations in her head that add up to 'just fucking tell him' but the solutions might not be so satisfying.

_Everything will be different._

They eat yesterday's leftover pizza and she sketches while he gets started on some reading to prepare for the start of his Harvard big-league education next month, and they're quiet for a couple hours apart from a comment here or there. Lardo works on a sketch of the trees in front of the balcony.

After dinner, they laze around watching game shows and inventing life stories for the contestants, this time with Shitty's hands carding through her hair. When they move to the bed, not tired but very lazy, Lardo takes the photo album from his bookshelf with her, leaning against the headboard beside Shitty and laughing joyfully at the photos of him as a kid. It's only when she realizes that he'd usually keep up a running commentary that she looks over curiously.

He's staring at her. When she catches him, he looks away far too quickly, like he’s been caught.

She closes the book with a little snap, mind made up, and chucks it to the end of the bed. “Hey,” she says. His face is so serious when he looks over again.

Lardo leans in, slowly, and his eyes widen as she cups his face with one of her hands, soaking in every detail of it. The smooth skin, the kind eyes. He swallows and exhales heavily, and then she leans in and kisses him, easy as that.

He doesn't move or do anything for a moment, not until Lardo slips her tongue inside his mouth to stroke along his, angles her head the other way, and then he groans and kisses her back hard, a hand reaching out to pull her in. She hums approvingly and slides her hands through his hair, scritching at his scalp. He makes a delicious sound against her mouth and his hands move to her shoulders to pull her closer, to devour her mouth with a soft moan that she immediately echoes.

He freezes at the sound, pulls back barely an inch, his breath ragged. "Lardo. I - I really hope you mean this, ‘cause..." He cradles her jaw now, and she wonders what he sees, what he’s feeling - if it's the same feeling that burns through her whenever she looks at him, whenever she thinks about him. "You're everything," he whispers.

To her embarrassment, she can feel tears forming. She bites her hip and leans in to kiss his cheek. "I mean it,” she tells him.

“Can - can I kiss you again?"

The fact that he’s asking is hot and sweet and so _him_ that it takes her breath away. She pulls him down with her as she slides to lie down on the bed, properly, and they meet in the middle, the kiss hot and hard. She whimpers, scraping her teeth along his bottom lip. He gasps and crowds her in, wrapping her up in his arms and then kissing down her throat to her collarbone. She brings a shaking hand to the small of his back, then up inside his shirt, stroking the warm skin there.

He breathes out in the air between them, smoothing her hair back gently to look down at her. He closes his eyes for a second, and she watches his Adam’s apple bob with a deep swallow. “You’re - you’re so beautiful, I just--”

She curls her arms up around his neck to pull him back down, to kiss him again, and again, injecting some of the desperation she’s feeling into it, and soon they’re making out hard, her legs around his waist, his hands up under her shoulder blades and their mouths brushing over and over like smooth silk.

She can feel him hard against her, and it’s so amazing she bites down on his lip again, harder this time, hard enough that he groans and presses down against her. She whimpers and bucks up, feels the muscles of her cunt clench. Her clit throbs with arousal.

He thrashes against her and half-sobs, “is this okay?”

She answers by grabbing handfuls of his ass and grinding up against him. His mouth descends on her throat and up to her ear. He moans, picking up the pace of his thrusts. They get a good rhythm going, where she’s sure they’re both able to feel everything even through their clothes.

She comes so soon she’s actually shocked. The friction between them gets her near the edge, her orgasm hovering just out of reach until she puts her feet on his calves and thrusts all along the length of him, and then she comes, moaning, the waves of it sweeping over her. He keeps thrusting madly, and she keeps her grip on him tight until she feels him seize up, and then he kisses her frantically as his hips snap forward a few times, and he grunts as he comes.

"Lardo," he sighs, catching his breath. She tells him 'one sec' so she can go to the bathroom for something to clean them up, and also so she can get her bearings, feeling overwhelmed. He’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, discussion face on when she exits the bathroom and joins him on the bed.

“How long?” he asks softly. 

“Freshman year,” she says when she settles across from him. “You?”

“Probs the first week I met you,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “You’re literally the coolest person ever, so.”

She ducks her head to hide her embarrassed smile. “Come on.”

“I’m serious, Lardo,” he tells her, very seriously. “I’ve never met anyone like you. Confident and fucking smart and sexy. But I didn't wanna be that friendzone asshole and you were and are the coolest friend ever, so that’s always been enough. It’s been perfect.” She has to keep breathing despite how hard her heart is pounding. “Look, I don’t want to scare you away here, but. I am so gone for you.”

She tips forward to give him a kiss. Then she swallows thickly. “I cried when you got your acceptance letter. I felt like such an asshole for not being happy about it, but I didn’t want what we have to be over.”

Shitty smiles. “That’s actually really sweet.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not sweet. That was an important moment for you. Ugh, I should have said something, but I was too scared of fucking this up.”

“Samesies,” Shitty says. “Did I mention you’re the best person? I didn’t want to lose you, either.”

“Oh my god, stop,” she chides him, but she squeezes his knee and leaves her hand there. “I’m gone for you, too, by the way.”

They spend the rest of the evening making out, and then, after dinner, he pulls her back to bed and shyly and sweetly asks her how she likes to masturbate, for her to tell him how she likes it best. She shows him instead, blushing and nervous, pulls her pants off and strokes back and forth on her clit, keeping her eyes on him. He stays quiet, but his hands are fisted in the sheets as he watches. When she makes herself come, crying out, he groans like he’s pulled a muscle. “You’re so hot,” he says weakly.

She could go again right now, god. 

“I want to see you now,” she rasps out. Her mouth is so dry.

He snaps right to it, takes his clothes off and lies back on the bed. He starts stroking his cock, meeting her gaze briefly before flushing and looking away. It's sweet. But he is clearly getting close already. “Can I?” she asks, reaching out. He swears and nods rapidly, and she takes over, leaning up over him and keeping her fist tight and slick around his cock.

His hands fly to her elbows and he begins thrusting fluidly. “Lardo!” he gasps. She feels a little pulse of power and arousal at Shitty using her name, picking up the pace of her pulls.

When he comes, he shakes for a full minute after. She pulls him in close and listens to his heartbeat, enjoys the searing heat of his body against hers.

Eventually, after getting ready for bed and talking for a while about everything and also nothing, exchanging kisses and laughter, they fall asleep in each other's arms.

When she wakes up in the morning, it’s to the feeling of Shitty hard and pressed up against her back, one arm around her waist. She sighs, already so down to get her hands on him again and his hands on her. She turns around in his hold so she’s facing him and gives him a kiss, trying to gently coax him awake. He slowly starts to sleepily respond, and she knows the moment he’s fully awake ‘cause he rolls her underneath him and smiles down at her, a shit-eating grin on his face. “I’m so happy. You have no idea.”

“I do,” she argues, sliding her hands up the backs of his biceps as he leans down to spread kisses along her throat, then past her collar to her chest. He tugs on the hem of her tanktop, and she nods her approval before he strips it off her slowly. “Oh,” she sighs when he gets his mouth on her nipple, humming deep from his throat. She looks down in time to see him close his eyes with a moan and she is so stiff she might come just from that. He moves to the other, his tongue flicking rapidly, and jesus the thought of _that tongue on her clit_.

As if reading her mind, he looks up at her and gasps, “Can I get you off? Please, Lardo. It’s all I can think about.”

“Yes,” she gasps. He places a kiss in the centre of her chest before scrambling to get lower, tugging her pj shorts off as he goes. He breathes over her clit for a moment, and she squirms in anticipation, before he smells her and moans. She clutches desperately at his shoulders, can't believe that after all the times she's fantasized about this, it's actually seriously happening. "Shitty," she moans. He hums, pulls her legs up so they're wrapped around his shoulders, and licks all along her cunt and over her clit, taking her in his hot and silky mouth. She whimpers, the sensation unbelievable.

"Mmm, you taste so fucking good," he groans. He sucks at her opening, licking and spearing his tongue inside. She whimpers and tries not to grind herself on his tongue, can feel her cunt leaking, slicking up so much faster than she thought possible.

He moans against her and eats her out like he's starving. His moustache rubs against her clit, and she shouts into the air, the sound echoing off the walls. He groans loud and long at that, and then he's on her clit again, tongue quick as lightning, as good as her fingers, licking hard and fast and with no break in pattern, so good she feels her orgasm crest and moans through it, clenching handfuls of his hair in her hands. He hurries to suck at her hole, at the growing wet, groaning and holding her thighs apart to get even more access.

“Holy shit!” she gasps. Of course he's incredible at this.

She's about to sit up, head warm and fuzzy, but he gently pushes her back and keeps going, returning the pressure to her clit until she's coming again a minute later, and this time the waves last five seconds, ten seconds, god, so long she can only moan helplessly through it. She groans when he finally lets up, her body boneless. She pants up at the ceiling.

Shitty crawls up the bed to kiss her. She tastes herself on him and groans weakly. He’s so sexy. She wants him inside her right now. How is she still so turned on?

“I really hope you have a condom somewhere in here,” she says, still a little out of breath.

Shitty freezes and stares at her. "Are - are you sure? We don’t have to! We - we can work up to it.”

She shakes her head at him, so amused and in love with everything he is. She pulls him down for a reassuring kiss, can’t believe that she was so scared to do that, something so natural and right, just 12 hours ago. “Please,” she whispers. “I want your cock so bad.”

“Fuck,” Shitty groans, throwing himself over the bed to get a condom from the bedside table. He tears the wrapper off, hands shaking as he rolls the condom down on to his very hard cock. She playfully taps his hip, giving him a smile, and he returns it but his expression is extremely nervous. He’s shaking as he strokes her nipples, then palms one hand down between her breasts and to her pussy, where he moans as he inserts two fingers.

Lardo slides her hands up his abs, then his pecs. “That’s so good, babe,” she moans as he strokes inside of her with his fingers. Lots of guys have no idea how to do this right, but Shitty is not one of them.

“How - how do you want to --?” Shitty asks, still fingering her slowly and perfectly.

She puts her hand around his wrist. “I’ll show you,” she says, even though she’d love to ride his fingers until she comes. He stops and pulls his fingers out, and the squelch of it makes both of them moan.

She moves Shitty so that he’s sitting on the bed, legs arranged in a lazy circle. Lardo straddles his hips, holding herself up so she can grab his cock and place it right at the wetness between her legs. She doesn’t move yet, just holds her breath. Shitty’s hands tremble on her hips, and he kisses her. She kisses him back for a moment, then drags her mouth down to his pulse point, nibbling gently. Shitty's entire body shakes. "Larissa," he breathes out.

She can’t resist it any longer; she sinks down so that her cunt is wrapped around the head of his cock, pausing for a second to moan in his ear, to let him know how fucking good it feels already.

"Oh, oh wow," he says, all breath. He hasn’t moved, not even a muscle, so she keeps going, sitting down until he’s inside her completely, until there’s no space between their hips. He shakily reaches up so that one of his hands is in her hair, and with his other hand places his thumb on her clit, rubbing gently. "Lardo, you feel - you are -" He’s trembling violently. “You’re perfect.”

He pants against her collarbone for some moments, his whole body shaking and these hot little sounds coming from his mouth. She clenches around him, then slides up and back down. The hand in her hair is suddenly at the small of her back, and his thumb on her clit doesn’t let up as he thrusts up while she slides down.

It's achingly slow, Lardo on top with her legs wrapped around him, riding his cock. Shitty working her clit with his thumb, their foreheads pressed together as they move in tandem, trembling and sweaty, both of her hands on his lower back muscles to pull him in and meet his thrusts just right. It's a very long while before either of them comes, content to just rock together and feel each other, and when they finally do it’s with their eyes locked and with an intensity that cracks something inside her.

Afterward, they both tremble in each other's arms, kissing for what feels like hours. And talking, about times they'd almost kissed the other or confessed their feelings, about past relationship experiences, and about what tomorrow might look like.

And the thing is, Lardo was right. Everything is different, just not in any of the ways she imagined. It's overwhelming and a little bit terrifying, but it's good, _so, so good._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Title taken from Downtown by Majical Cloudz.


End file.
